The One Where Denise Fell Off The Face Of The Earth

Let it be known that I AM alive and well. Let it also be known that I am still without my laptop and even my old, ancient backup laptop. I have been demoted to our old PC upstairs that the kids use for their games and Webkinz and it is highly inconvenient. I come up to use it and within 10 minutes my children sound like they are killing each other from the sounds of the screaming and yelling. For the record, DFS frowns on your children killing each other. Trust me on this.

I would so love to share photos of my trip to Carey's but this dog gone computer won't upload them from my camera. Grrr... I can tell you that I had a wonderful time. Carey is delightful, as are her funny husband Scott and her darling boys Jack and Logan. I can also tell you that I got lots of sleep. Since Emma didn't have her bed to contain her at night, I had to lay down with her to get her to go sleep. I learned something at Carey's house.

Denise + Dark Room + Laying Down = Denise goes to sleep

Yes, I'm that sleep deprived. Or I'm that old. Let's go with sleep deprived.

I have also found something else out about myself since coming home and being computer deprived: When I'm computer deprived I get more house work done.

Yes, I've gone off the deep end.

While you all have been Facebooking and blogging, I've been shampooing the carpet in my van and organizing closets. The horror!!! I even went to Hobby Lobby and bought baskets to organize my stuff. And they were 50% off. But I didn't use a coupon. (Sorry Brandy!)

Trace has been working on my laptop and he claims he should have it fixed by Saturday night when I come home. I'm leaving tomorrow to go pick up Julia from her friend's in Tennesse and coming back home on Saturday. Yes, I'm driving 16 hours in 2 days with 3 small children and 8 hours with 2 middle school girls. Pray for me. Also pray that Trace has my laptop done. Momma needs to blog.

This Means War

"We make war that we might live in peace." Aristotle

"War is Hell" General William Tecumseh Sherman

"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it." George Orwell

As you all know, I was Cruela Denise and took Emma's bottle away on Monday night. I knew it was time but she was very attached to it, more so than my other kids ever where. In the end, it was my own selfish desire to finally sleep more than 4 hours at a stretch (if I was lucky) that finally made me become mean.

So Monday night we had our first skirmish when I told Emma her bottle was all gone. Then Tuesday afternoon Emma declared war by peeing on my lap. But you know that already.

Mommy 1: Emma 1

What you don't know (unless you have been reading my Facebook updates) is that war was on full force. Emma began trying to wear me down and she had many tactics.

Guerrilla warfare: She dumped a box of Reese's cereal on the floor.

Which the puppy ate some of and then proceed to vomit and poop diarrhea all over my carpet. Double bonus points for Emma.

Mommy 1: Emma 3

Next came bedtime and nap time. If you remember from the video last week, Emma slept in the twin bed and Ryan slept in the toddler bed. In the past, Emma would get out of the toddler bed whenever I put her to bed in it, but the twin bed seemed high enough that she never tried to get out. Until this week. The first night of her crying/fit she slid herself out of bed and it was a whole new ball game for the child. We were up until midnight every night, with her ultimately sleeping in my bed.

Mommy 2: Emma 6

The good news there is that the last two nights she actually slept through the night. The bad news was she refused to take a nap.

Until about 5:00 on Wednesday and Thursday on the living room floor, which then perpetuated the staying up late. Talk about a vicious cycle. And a cranky mommy. Mommy needs her nap time, not personally-- although that might be nice, but her babies nap time so that she can spend uninterrupted time on Facebook get important things done. On Wednesday at nap time, I must have put that child back to bed about 30 times. I finally gave up. Pick and choose your battles, wise words spoken by a war battered general, or a really tired mommy. Same thing.

The final straw was last night. I rocked Emma to sleep and put her in her bed around 9:30. I came downstairs and was in the middle of writing a blog post gloating stating that Emma was asleep before midnight for the first time all week and I was going to take a bath and read a book when Ninja baby showed up.

This must have been her 5th trip down the stairs. I was tired and I considered giving in but I held firm. And although Emma has a bottle hanging out her mouth here...

It's an empty bottle, not even a liner. I just tell her the bottle's all gone.

Mommy 3: Emma 6

So let's recap, shall we? So far Emma's not gotten a bottle full of formula since Tuesday afternoon. In the meantime, Emma's peed on Mommy, spilled cereal, caused the dog to poop and vomit all over carpet, Emma refuses to take a nap and made sure that Mommy has absolutely NO alone time from 6:45 am until midnight, now sleeps in Mommy's bed and clings to Mommy practically all day long.

How is this a good thing again? Oh yeah, I get 6 hours of consecutive sleep. Although I don't really because I'm so used to her waking up in the night I keep waking up wondering if she's okay. Ugh.

But this morning I got an epiphany. Emma wasn't sleeping because she could escape from her bed. If she couldn't escape then she might go to sleep. Since tying her down didn't seem like a good option, (seriously, who has time for a DFS investigation?) I moved onto Option #2.

I converted the toddler bed back into a baby bed. The real trick was convincing Ryan that the big bed was a better choice than the now baby bed. After I showed him the cars and trucks on his sheets, it was go.

{Yes, Ryan was sleeping in the purple butterfly and flower toddler bed while Emma slept in the car and truck bed. Get over it already, Ross.}

Only someone forgot to consult Emma and she was not for this switch. At nap time I put her in the crib and she screamed and cried and cried and screamed until about 30 minutes later, it was quiet. (I had been going up and checking on her and reassuring her every 10 minutes or so) I crept upstairs to investigate. For all I knew she had figured out a way to climb out and she was in my bathroom playing with my makeup, which she had done the day before when she got out of bed at nap time.

But instead she had fallen asleep. Success! Emma may have won more battles but Mommy won the war. Mommy always wins.

If you want to be my friend on Facebook you can find me under Denise Grover Swank. And be sure to join a group I created, just this morning, titled More Housework, Less Facebook! Don't worry, it's just our cover story. We say we are going to do more housework while we really spend more time on Facebook. I can't leave my group unattended now, can I?